A group of Jewish students prevented the first far-right speaker of Austria’s parliament, Walter Rosenkranz, from laying a wreath at Vienna’s main Holocaust memorial on Friday. According to them, he “spits in the face of our ancestors”, reports TASR according to the AFP agency.
On the occasion of the 86th anniversary of the Kristallnacht pogrom, students also held a banner in front of Rosenkranz with the inscription “The word of one who honors the Nazis is worthless”.
He was not invited to an official memorial service organized by Austria’s main Jewish organization, and the organization’s chairman said, that “it is not possible to remember the victims together with such a person”.
Rosenkranz is criticized for his membership in a far-right student union known for its strident pan-German nationalism. The main Jewish organization in the country has previously ruled out participation in events with him.
Lawmakers elected Rosenkranz as parliament speaker in late October after his far-right Free Party of Austria (FPÖ) won its first ever election in September.
After being elected Speaker of the Parliament, he promised to continue the country’s fight against anti-Semitism. accusations, that he represents a threat to the Jewish community, he called it a lie.
